FX rate per fixture

Vista software How do I ...?
1

I have a struggle with my fx speeds from show-to-show bases.
Some 80% or more I do busk shows. So that means one time there are X amount fixtures -> next time there are X times more or less, but the base show file with fx stacks is almost the same.

Basic things to do when I come to show is to update groups, presets (what necessary) and then start with fx stacks. What I would like to do here is -> update fx selection and apply some blocking/repeat based on the rig and feel. And that’s it. As they are preset based they should do the thing out of the box.
But while applying blocking / repeat the fx speed change dramatically. It’s not a big issue if you have a simple FX with 1 layer but most of them have 2 - 5 layers and adjusting the ‘rate multiplier’ to match the ‘right’ speed for each layer each single time seems kinda pointless as the only thing I want to do is to chance blocking/repeat not the overall feel of FX speed.

So the options to control fx speed behavior are ‘Per Cycle’ and ‘Per Fixture’.
‘Per Cycle’ -> doesn’t seem to fit my needs as 2x more fixtures result in a 2x increase in speed.
‘Per Fixture’ -> Sounds promising but the title seems misleading. In reality, the unit is not a single fixture but a group of fixtures when blocking is applied.

This is how ‘Per Fixture’ is explained in V2 manual:
“if the chase is at a Rate of 80BPM per-item, then the chase will cover 80 fixtures each minute. The loop time of a per-fixture effect varies with the quantity of fixtures used and is slower with more fixtures. This means the fixture-to-fixture rate will be constant no matter how many fixtures are used”

This is how it actually behaves:

I have 4 fixtures.
Fx temp is 4bpm.
No blocking/repeat.
Output -> Each fixture does full cycle in one minute.

I have 4 fixtures.
Fx temp is 4bpm.
Blocking is set to 2.
Output -> Each fixture does 2 full cycles in one minute.

Seems that this logic applies to ‘logical units’, not a single fixtures? :frowning:

Is there some way around to get rid of FX rate editing wen fixture count changes?

2

I think you are thinking about the number of flashes too much. Don’t think about the numbers, think about the timing.

If I have 10 fixtures with a rate of 60bpm per cycle. Vista will do 60 cycles in a minute. A cycle is all 10 fixtures flashing once . So it takes 1 second to do a whole sweep of all 10 lights.

If I change the rate to become per fixture, it now takes 1 second from each fixture flash to the next
(with 10 lights each fixture will flash 6 times within a minute by your reasoning).

If I update my FX selection to become 20 fixtures and go back to per cycle, all 20 lights again complete 60 cycles within a minute. You have doubled the fixture count so therefore to maintain the same number of 60 cycles per minute the, perceived, flash rate doubles, even though the FX rate remains the same.

If you change the rate back to per fixture each fixture will return back to flashing once per second.
(with 20 lights each fixture will now technically flash 3 times over the minute but the crucial bit here is that the per beat to beat duration is still in sync with the music and is exactly the same as it was for 10 fixtures.

With 4 fixtures and a blocking of 2 you have effectively halved your fixture count, so yes you will of course get double the amount of fixture flashes within the same period, but is the per beat to beat flash still perfectly in sync with the music = yes it is :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

1 Like